We Are Rebuilding Monica

The open‑source personal CRM Monica is being rebuilt from the ground up, a process that will be chronicled in a new series titled “Building Monica.” Founder and lead developer, who created the project nearly a decade ago to compensate for his own poor memory of personal details, announced that the current version no longer reflects the way he would design a personal relationship manager today. After the original code was posted on GitHub and gained traction—drawing in co‑founder Alexis, thousands of users, contributors, translators and bug reporters, and amassing more than 25,000 stars—the software evolved organically, adding contacts, relationships, reminders, activities, gifts, notes, pets and addresses as needs arose. Now, after ten years of incremental growth, the accumulated decisions have become constraints, prompting a complete redesign that will rethink core concepts such as what constitutes a person, how relationships are modeled, and how the system should handle non‑human entities, reminders, and activities.

The redesign centers on addressing fundamental architectural shortcomings that have emerged from the original ad‑hoc development approach. The creator explains that early design choices treated relationships as simple attributes attached to contacts, which proved inadequate for representing complex family structures—divorces, step‑children, half‑siblings, adoptions—and for accommodating cultural variations in kinship terminology. In the new version, relationships will be treated as a distinct domain, allowing bidirectional and nuanced connections that better mirror real‑world dynamics. Similarly, the project will shift from a rigid schema that dictates what information a contact can hold toward a more customizable framework, providing sensible defaults while enabling users to tailor the data model to their unique lives. This overhaul goes beyond cosmetic UI changes; it aims to deliver a more playful, personal interface built on a flexible, powerful backend capable of documenting the full spectrum of people and relationships in a user’s life.

Looking ahead, the upcoming Monica v3 will not simply be a facelift of the existing product but a comprehensive re‑engineering that promises both a refreshed user experience and a robust, adaptable data structure. The series will document the decisions, challenges and occasional missteps encountered during this rebuild, offering transparency to the community that has supported the project since its inception. By redefining core entities and embracing customization, the new version aspires to serve a broader audience while staying true to the original mission of helping individuals remember and nurture personal connections. The initiative signals a pivotal moment for Monica’s future, with implications for its existing user base, contributors, and the wider open‑source personal CRM ecosystem.

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